would only confuse her, get in the way. Maybe the blonde woman who helps him with supplies, the one who everyone listens to. He wonders what he will do if she gets angry, or sad, or afraid, or even calls the police. But he thinks that, of anyone he knows, she might know what to do. He folds the drawing until it’s small enough to fit in his pocket, next to his matches. Another secret he’s forced to wear close to his skin.
* * *
THE BLONDE girl smiles at him when he comes in the next day, then points to places he needs to clean—dust on the counters, dirt on the floors. He still feels that same buzz of energy and worry from everyone around him, everyone moving quickly, as though there is some emergency, something gone wrong. He spends the first half of his shift performing his duties with more care and attention than ever before—he knows he needs to win her, to earn her trust, before he asks her to see, to know what he knows. Sometimes the women creep into his mind, and he feels himself about to get sick again. The water in the dirty mop bucket reminds him of the color of their skin and he runs to the bathroom and heaves.
He waits until she’s alone at the desk, one hand fiddling with the shining cross at her neck. Her gesture reminds him of the women—their bracelets and necklaces flashing in the sun. He takes the drawing from his pocket and unfolds it slowly, as though it could bite, and holds it in front of her. She glances at it, then looks at his face, frowning. He expects horror, anger, but she makes a face of disgust, like she stepped in a piece of dog shit. She turns to watch a woman approach the door and widens her eyes at him, nods her head in the direction of the back hall. No. He stands there, feeling injured, until the blonde points, her mouth making hard, angry shapes. As he steps away, he crushes the paper back into his pocket, watches her switch on a smile for the woman who’s come in the door.
After that, his only comfort is the matchbook in his pocket. A few times during his shift, he steps outside to strike a match, lets it burn down until he feels a sting on his fingers. The craving for heat is huge, total. It fills him up, hollows out where other things used to be. But every time he closes his eyes, he sees the women again. Arranged, as though they are animals who have been hunted. In the back hall he tears the drawing into strips, feeling a rack of guilt as he looks at the ruined picture, the tears like additional wounds to the women’s bodies. He shoves the scraps into the garbage near the coffeemaker, pushes them below the wet coffee grounds and greasy napkins and orange peels.
There are two more hours left on his shift, but for the first time in his life, he cuts out of work early. It shocks him, how easy it is. To simply walk across the parking lot behind the casino, past the dumpsters filled with the waste from the buffets: half-gnawed cobs of corns, the bones of rotting fish, a thousand crumpled paper napkins dark with grease. Past the marina, a few motorboats tied up, bobbing alongside the docks, and the overgrown bushes near the valet. The day feels both damned and filled with renewed potential. He can’t save those women. Their open eyes will follow him wherever he goes. But he can set a fire, a signal. Something larger, more ruinous than ever before, that will show everyone just how cruel, how ugly and wrong this city has become.
LILY
ON FRIDAY MORNING, I GOT to the library before it opened, waited for someone to come and raise the metal grate at the front door. I wasn’t the only one lingering—a woman with a cart full of plastic grocery store bags and crumpled newspapers waited with me. I shifted from foot to foot until someone came and rolled the grate up and unlocked the door.
The woman who worked on the archives, Sue, was small and tidy-looking with a neat crop of silvery hair. Once she arrived and settled in, I showed her the pictures of the paintings on my phone. At one—the diving girl done in blue—she reached out and held my wrist.
“That one.